Timothy Achumba

Product Designer
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Timothy Achumba is an African born, UK based Product Designer, married to the lovely Judith Achumba-Wöllenstein. Creating digital experiences that help people’s day-to-day lives get’s him out of bed in the morning. He’s also the co-founder of Interface Lovers, an online magazine that sheds light on what motivates and inspires designers from all over the world.

What role does music play in your day-to-day life as a creative?:

I honestly don’t think I’d be able to function without music. I’m constantly listening to it, when I’m working, commuting, hanging out with friends. It helps me think when I’m working, helps to create an atmosphere and truly brings people together. Without it, my thoughts can’t flow. It almost as if my ideas travel along the sound waves of each song. I’ve never worked in music, I played the guitar when I was younger in my father’s church but after I moved away from home I stopped playing.

I think me appreciate for music really grew when I moved to Berlin to start my job at Wunderlist. I remember buying a pair of Bose QC15s at the airport (the noise cancelling demos will get you!). Berlin is known for the music scene, House, Techno, Minimal. The music really gets under your skin, into your bones. My curiously for new music started there and now I’m constantly in search for new music every day, a new fix. I think it because of the feeling you get when you hear a song from the first time. It’s hard to describe. It’s almost as if it each note effortlessly falls into place like it was always supposed to, just like the needle of a record player falls into the grooves of the record. You only get to experience this once. This is why I’m always searching.

Tell us about your playlist:

A lot of these songs bring back memories of my time in Berlin. Rainy evenings at home or open air parties by the Spree or late nights at the office. It’s hard to pin point the location and situation of each song. It’s more of a compilation of songs that helped me to make sense of moving to a foreign city by myself. Strangely felt at home in Berlin, I guess it was because everyone moving there were all going through the same thing, at the same time. We were all alone in a foreign city, together.